I meant your particular group... I'm quite familiar with the ren fair vibe. Some travel. Some stay local. Some are nationwide(or larger? Not sure how far the sca stretches). Also not sure if sca jousts. The guys I knew who did it just did the armoered fights.

I've seen some jousting and it is quite the sight to behold especially in person. Love the pics! Thank you for sharing them :) I'm also quite sure knights rode about with dragons on their helms all the time ;) who wouldn't want something that breathes fire that close to their face!Posted via Mobile Device

I work at the Bristol Renaissance Faire most years at the venders, so I get to watch the Hanlon-Lee boys do their thing every weekend. Very fun stuff. I, myself, do mounted archery. I am looking into doing it as a profession, but that isn't for a while now. Great pictures!

How do you get involved in that?? I signed up at my group but they never contacted me. They said that I would receive stuff in the mail, but that was a year ago. :( I have a friend that is the guy that gets knifes thrown at him. he said he would take me this year!!

By the way the group that comes here is hogstown. I don't know if you've herd about them.

For my area, our Equine Team leader actually trains his ground crew, his riders, and jousters. Because we're not a big name festival, we can't really afford to have people come here to joust, even though we had someone from the seattle knights participate a few times.

Otherwise, I am not entirely sure how you get involved with it... Considering that you're in Florida, I imagine it would be hard to come up to Washington to be a part of the Jousting. : c

What we do is actually use real lances, dress in armor, and the like, how they did it back in the renaissance age.

It's dangerous, possibly life threatening, and painful as hell, but the riders love it. One of them lost a chunk of skin on his breast just from last practice we had.

So apparently the real knights of Europe were smarter than these renaissance faire knights. In the time of Elizabeth I (before James I) they had stopped lancing each other and where doing what is known as "running at the rings" (Maryland's state sport) which is far more difficult that lancing a man and amazingly safer.

They also still competed using an old training technique. A pole that can rotate with two arms. A shield on one and a heavy object on the other. The object is to lance the sheild and avoid getting hit by the other arm as it spins around. The knight that causes the greatest number of rotations wins.

Neither is as easy as it sounds (the rings are pretty small), but a LOT safer. So much so, that the professional knights of old stopped actually attacking each other in favor of this.

We use a standin shield [which is a shield that is posted to a thick post in which the jouster hits for points]
We also use a Quintain, which is what you had described in your earlier post. That, we use also for point hitting for our shows. The standing shield is just a training mechanism.
When we do the actual show, we do not hit each other directly with the lances. Instead we aim for the shields. However, that DOES NOT guarantee a safe hit, or a hit that will not knock a rider off if not hit correctly. I've seen a thick, heavy lance split in two from two jousters practicing, seen the tips splinter to pieces, and have someone fall just by hitting the quintain.

None of these are 'safe' practices. However, we do not, and cannot, guarantee the safety of the riders. If for some reason someone falls, or gets hit, there are a lot of variables which go into the cause. The horse may have veered off from the line, the rider may have lost balance, the lance tip may not have been completely on the lance, their shield presentation may not have been correct, something may have been wrong with the armor, etc.

In all the jousts that I have seen, and partook in as a groundcrewman, the most the jousters got out of with were small bits of flesh being lost, and bruises.

Looking at the weapons that are used it does pose the question what if, heaven forbid, a fatal accident happened. Since the death would be accidental, but the attack is delliberate. What would be the court ruling. When a historical reenactor was accidently in 1998 the person who made the shot was charged with assault and reckless endangerment. Fortunately the person wasn't killed, but injured enough to require hospital treatment.
Just remember, a signed release won't always get you off the hook when dealing with someone being killed, crippled or severly injured. It might keep you from being charged with attempted murder (or worse), but there are many other crimes that can be applied. Just keep that in mind.
Of course I'd also worry about a slip, miss or deflected blow lancing my horse.

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